“And what, spending time with my son isn’t fun?” Ryan says, joining us.
“He’s the best kind of fun,” Lexi argues, “but I also need some pre-mom Micaela fun. The kind where we’re too drunk to remember the trouble we got ourselves into.”
She walks into the house like she owns the place, rolling her luggage behind her.
Georgia stifles a laugh, giving me a one-armed hug. “She took three art classes,” she says with a playful eye roll.
“And a math class,” Lexi points out. “One very exhausting and traumatizing math class. Why anyone needs to take math when they’re majoring in art makes no sense.”
Ryan snorts, snaking his arms around me from behind and kissing my cheek.
“Hey, don’t laugh,” Lexi says, pointing a manicured finger at Ryan. “I’m an artist. I create. I don’t do math. Math is… structured and I don’t do structure.” She points to Georgia. “She does structure.”
“And she did most of your homework,” Georgia says, referring to herself in the third person. “So, if anyone deserves a fun night out, it’s me.”
Lexi snorts a laugh. “Oh, really? A fun night, huh?” She steps into the living room and picks RJ up, giving him kisses. “What kind of fun are we talking here, dear sister? The drinking kind?”
“Maybe.” Georgia shrugs.
“Oh, I can’t wait to see this,” Lexi says, cracking up laughing. RJ joins in, not having a clue why he’s laughing but still laughing nonetheless.
“Your house is beautiful,” Georgia says, looking around.
“Yeah, very… grownup,” Lexi adds with a wink.
“Thanks. My parents are going to take RJ for the night,” I tell them, showing them to their rooms. Since the house has four bedrooms, two of them have been turned into guest rooms for the time being. When we confirmed they would be staying with us, Ryan ordered two bedroom sets and had them delivered.
“Once we’re ready to go, I’ll just run him over and then we can take off. We’ll order an Uber so nobody has to drive.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Lexi kisses RJ’s cheek then hands him to Ryan, who takes him into the other room, while Lexi, Georgia, and I climb onto the queen-sized bed together. Georgia and I sit against the headboard, and Lexi sprawls out across the end of the bed. “Is anyone else going besides us?” she asks.
“I considered inviting a few friends from school.” I shrug. “But I stopped talking to most of them when Ian died. And the few who kept in touch kind of disappeared after I had RJ. I guess having a baby isn’t exactly most people’s idea of fun.”
“Then they’re not friends,” Lexi points out. “Real friends stay by your side, even when shit gets tough. You need to move to LA so we can be closer.”
“I agree,” Georgia adds. “You could go to school with us.”
“And where would I live? I can’t exactly live with you and your parents.”
“We’re moving out,” Lexi says with a mischievous grin. “And we convinced Dad to pay for it.”
“How the hell did you pull that off? You live like ten minutes from the school.”
“We told him we’re growing up.” Lexi shrugs, like it was just that easy. I’m not buying it, though. Uncle Tristan is super protective of his daughters.
“And,” Georgia adds, “we also told him that if we had gone away somewhere, he would’ve paid for dorms, but we lived at home instead, which saved him a ton of money, so we asked if we could use it toward an apartment, and since we’re both doing well in school, he agreed.”
If it weren’t for Ryan paying the bills here, I’d be living with my parents forever. It’s expensive to live in Vegas, and without a degree, whatever job I were to get would never pay enough. They had offered to pay for my dorm in San Diego after Ian died and I told them I would still like to go to school there, but that feels like so long ago.
“Have you found a place yet?”
“No, but we’re looking. We’re hoping to be moved in soon. I want to throw a party to celebrate summer. You could move in with us,” Lexi offers, and I love her even more for that.
“One, I wouldn’t want to cramp your style.” She opens her mouth to argue, but I continue. “And two, if I were to go away to school it would be to San Diego. Right now, I’m just focusing on RJ and Ryan. I’ll figure my schooling out later.”
“So, does that mean you and Ryan are…” She waggles her brows, and Georgia giggles.
A huge grin breaks out across my face, remembering the last couple weeks since Ryan returned home. The first few days were rough, even after I kind of lost it and we talked then had the best makeup sex on the table, but every day gets easier. We spend our days with RJ and our nights together. Some days Ryan works out on his own, while I hang out with my mom. Other days, we work out together. Since RJ is five months old, he can hang out at the gym daycare, but usually one of our parents are around and insist on taking him.
Since Ryan is an exceptionally good cook, something I forgot about from our time together at the beach house, he’s been showing me how to make different meals. And I’m proud to say nothing else, since that first day, has burned. He also makes sure I fall asleep before him, and thankfully, he doesn’t snore every night. He thinks it was from the dust in Afghanistan. It had his sinuses clogged.
Don’t get me wrong, things aren’t perfect. He still leaves his clothes on the floor more than he remembers to put them in the hamper. I fell into the toilet once more before he made a conscious effort to remember to put it down. We learned I have a tendency to leave the cabinets open, and he’s hit his head on them no less than five times. He also curses my amount of ‘girly products’ on a daily basis. I leave them all over the sink—my deodorant, hair products, makeup, lotion—and every time he uses the sink, he manages to knock everything to the floor. I’m working on putting it all away after I use it, I swear.
But even with all that’s not perfect, we’re together and happy and spending time as a family with our son. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
“We’re together,” I tell them.
“Remember when we were younger, and he was in town for the holidays.” Lexi giggles. “He was in the hot tub with his wife…”
“Oh my God!” I exclaim, remembering what she’s talking about. We were probably twelve… maybe thirteen years old. We were all in Breckenridge for Christmas and had snuck out to go use the hot tub at Bentley and Kayla’s place, since they were the only ones with one—only Ryan and Laura were already out there.
“That body.” Lexi whistles. “He became the star of my older man fantasy. All wet and hard…”
“Who was wet and hard?” Ryan asks, scaring the shit out of all of us.
“You,” Lexi says without apology.
Ryan’s one brow arches in confusion.
“We saw you and Laura in the hot tub when we were younger. You were shirtless,” I explain.
Lexi nods, and Georgia blushes.
Ryan laughs. “I don’t remember that, but I know damn well nothing happened in that hot tub.”